The goddesses Kali and Jagadhatri

This double-image, printed from two metal plates on a single sheet of paper is one of the pioneering images of Calcutta print-making. They are referred to as Battala prints, named after Battala, a locality in the Hooghly district of Kolkata, where many local presses had been established in the early to mid-19th century. The print engravers worked both on metal sheets and woodblocks. The print on the left depicts the goddess Kali standing on the prone figure of Shiva, wielding a sacrificial blade in a raised hand while holding by a tuft of hair the severed head of her victim in her lower hand. Her expression, with wide eyes, blood-stained mouth and protruding tongue—intended to instill terror in the disbeliever—is a source of comfort to her devotees.

The second print (right) depicts the goddess Jagadhatri, a form of the Hindu goddess Durga, in a near identical setting of a Europeanized columned pavilion. Like Kali, to whom she is related, Jagadhatri is also honored lavishly in an annual puja held in the Hooghly district of Kolkata in the month of Kartik (mid-November). A third eye in her forehead and a snake rising above her right shoulder signal her allegiance to Shiva. The goddess sits upon a lotus-cushion, poised majestically upon her lion vehicle (vahana), wielding her divine weapons. She is flanked by two female guards and at her feet knell a worshipful couple. Both goddesses are framed by a Victorian cusped arch supported on slender openwork pillars with Ionic capitals, all evocative of the cast-iron architectural décor that was such a feature of British Calcutta.